The Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Nature Reserve

The Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Nature Reserve

The Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association (SBMWA) was formed in 1949 to enhance the quality of the natural environment in the 265-square mile region drained by Stony Brook and the Millstone River. SBMWA addresses key issues affecting water quality and land use, educates area residents about the ecology of the natural environment, and preserves open space by maintaining a 785-acre nature reserve and a working organic farm.

The SBMWA Nature Reserve is located on Titus Mill Road in Hopewell Township about 1 1/2 miles northeast of Pennington Borough in Mercer County, New Jersey. It falls within the Piedmont physiographic region, near its southern edge, and within the Pennington USGS quadrangle.

The reserve was made possible by the vision and generosity of Dr. Muriel Gardiner Buttinger, who made a series of substantial contributions to the Watershed Association during the period from 1972 to 1985. In addition to a cash endowment, her gifts included 585 acres of land and the beautiful farm house that was her summer retreat. The reserve is host to thousands of visitors and home to a wide variety of wildlife.

On the grounds of the reserve are hiking trails, a wildflower area, a four-acre research pond, an arboretum, a nature center and art gallery, an organic farm and several historic farm buildings. Some of the oldest trees in central New Jersey are found on the reserve, as well as an extensive representation of animal and bird life—including endangered species such as osprey, bobolinks, great blue herons and red-shouldered hawks.

Biological Inventory

In early 1996 Jeff Hoagland, Education Director for SBMWA, organized a biological inventory of the reserve. He brought together a team of volunteers from the area who had an interest in and knowledge of the natural world to survey the property and to report on what species they found and identified. The group, or subset of it, typically got together every other Saturday morning, and members were also invited to survey at other times if that was more convenient. Surveys were conducted from February 1996 through October 1997.

Members of the team were Joanne Barbera, Louis Beck, Michael Betancourt, Joe Bird, Sheila Blackwell, Sean Clawson, Sherry Dudas, Rick Dutko, Eric Engelhard, Chrissy Fairbank, Tod Fairbanks, Glen Freeman, Jennie Hanson, Jeff Hoagland, Maxfield Hoagland, Pam Hoagland, Eileen Katz, Natalie Kennedy, Tracey Ledder, Herb Lord, Noelle MacKay, Charles Magee, Sharyn Magee, John Maret, Phil Moylan, Judy Olukotun, Pat Pergola, Joe Pylka, Jim Regetz, Rebecca Sylvan, Amy Tetervin, Doug Turner, Pat Von Hippel, Barbara Wethe, Jeff Whidden, and Don Wright.

Maps of the reserve (Figure 1) with a grid system and data cards to be filled out for each observation were designed and distributed to the team members. The data cards had fields for entering Date, Time, Grid #, Contributor, Weather, Item (e.g. “Reptile”), Relative Location, Species (Common Name), Latin Name, Abundance, Age (e.g. “Adult”), Sex, Plants (associated with the observation), Verification, Site Description, Notes and Comments. More than 1300 data cards were filled out and turned in. The data was entered into the survey data base, most if not all of it by Noelle MacKay, who was at that time volunteering at the SBMWA.

Figure 1, the map used for the biological inventory, provides a general overview of the reserve. Figure 2, an aerial photograph taken in the 1995/1997 time period as part of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Geographic Information System data, provides a bird’s eye view of the property.

Figure 3 shows a Land Use / Land Cover data layer developed by NJDEP by interpreting aerial photography data. The topography is quite flat, with an elevation range from about 160 to 200 feet above sea level. The reserve includes a man-made pond along Honey Branch and some small adjacent herbaceous wetlands in the northeastern region, and a portion of Stony Brook along its western edge. Some of the forested area near Stony Brook is classified as deciduous wooded wetlands; much of the remainder of the forested area is classified as deciduous forest. The forested area in the west-central portion of the reserve is a mix of deciduous and coniferous forest, and the central portion of the forested area south of Titus Mill Road is coniferous forest. Much of the eastern and southern part of the reserve is actively farmed. There is a large area of brushland/shrubland in the northern part of the reserve.

Survey Results

The survey results are summarized in the attached tables, which hopefully contain enough information to adequately represent the survey results without an excessive amount of detail.

Different members of the survey team used different field guides, and therefore different members of the team in some cases reported species under different common names, and sometimes different scientific names. For vertebrate animals, both common names and scientific names are pretty well standardized and fairly stable. For other groups common names are not standardized, and the taxonomy may not be stable or standardized. For vertebrate animals, some invertebrates (butterflies, freshwater mussels) and plants the New Jersey Natural Heritage Program (NJNHP) maintains lists of all species found in the state. Efforts were made to bring common and scientific names into conformity with that list, and to use that list to associate species names with family, order, and class where possible. However, in cases where, for example, a plant common and scientific name were provided as listed in a field guide, but neither the common or scientific name appeared in the NJNHP list, the field guide names were simply used as given. This was also done for groups not covered by the NJNHP list.

Table 1 covers birds in the typical format. The bird species are grouped first by order, then by family, and both common and scientific names are given. For each species all site descriptions that were specified on data cards reporting observations of that species are given; this is one way of indicating the habitats in which the species were found. Thus Pied-billed Grebes were reported only in the pond, and Canada Geese were reported in three areas. Eighty-nine species of birds were reported.

Results for vertebrates other than birds are summarized in Table 2 in the same format as Table 1. Eight species of fish, seven species of amphibians, eight species of reptiles, and 13 species of mammals were identified. Additionally, at least one species of bat was observed, but the species could not be determined.

Results for invertebrates are summarized in Table 3. In many cases for invertebrates the identification was made to the family or genus level, not to species level. For insects, one hundred eleven species (or families, etc.) were identified in this way; four species of spiders and four species of freshwater mussels were also identified.

Results for plants are summarized in Table 4. Three hundred twenty-one kinds of plants were identified, all but a few to the species level. Plant classes are indicated in the table in addition to order and family.

Results for fungi and molds are summarized in Table 5. More than sixty kinds of fungi/molds were identified. The taxonomy for the fungi seems to be somewhat in dispute, as different sources (field guides and web sites) in some cases listed conflicting information with respect to family, order, and class for a given scientific name. Fungi and molds are not covered by the NJNHP list.

Results for algae, protozoa and lichens are listed in Table 6. For these groups the names as listed on the data cards are simply listed in alphabetical order in the table. One hundred three species of algae, one lichen, and six protozoa were identified, all except the lichen by Tod Fairbanks.